Brother Waterman wasn't there. You must ov set far back." "Well - er yes-ruther!" he stammered. "I thought I heard your voice behind me. You sing tenor, I think. You ought ter set further up. Your music's needed." Shan set his teeth against further lying if possible. "No, you didn't hear me sing. I didn't have no book," he added. Surely that was the truth. "There was plenty around me," and she glanced shyly at him. "You should set further up next time," she repeated. There was a bit of mischief in her tones. "Or mount just a little sooner?" he said, in the same spirit, bending forward to see her averted face. They were passing now over the bit of road on which they had ridden together last week, and the remembrance of those events had silenced them. Neither spoke during its entire length. When they passed the point where she had splashed his eye, the girl turned to him and smiled a contrition that she felt; and at the other place, after turning off toward her house, — -- where the mother had found her mule, they looked into each other's faces and laughed aloud. They were nearing her stiles when Shan, feeling that the good-humored occasion would justify it, blurted out: "Why didn't you wait for me this morning, Dolly?" "Oh, you came over to our house, you know, to see my brother Henry," she said in the dignity of good grammar; "he waited for you, didn't he? Won't you come in?" as she slid upon the stiles. "Henry'll be at home shortly," still with a rising inflection. But he hitched her horse for her, said "goodby" as she gathered her riding-skirt about her, and without dismounting he rode home. CHAPTER IV "And grasp the skirts of happy chance -TENNYSON. "Before man made us citizens great Nature made us man." - LOWELL. THERE were at least two things that bore heavily down upon Shan next day as he fixed the old worm fence that lay between the middle prairie field and the "back forty" of virgin sod. The one was that having directed his visit at Henry solely, he could not again, with rustic propriety, go over to the Simpson's till Henry had come to see him once. He felt, too, that this visiting from Henry would not be so responsive now as in their younger school-days, when "you go home with me to-night and I'll go home with you ter-morrer night" was the rule. The other was the consciousness that he was not up to the undertaking of a regular courting campaign; he doubted the policy of it, even if he were. Yet he must look out for being too much given to subterfuges. Twice yesterday she had caught him fibbing certainly. She had always known his weak points and tendencies, and he had had a broad hint that she mistrusted his sudden interest in her brother. But while he knew that she would never respond to his attentions till he came out manfully and aimed them directly at her, he could not help feeling that his modesty and greenness made all that impractical now. He was too blunt, he felt. He knew himself too ardent. The girl was too shy. He would spoil the thing with the boldness of it, as he feared he might have done already. He must have some sort of lubrication, the foil of an excuse for getting near her and some machinery for working out his plans. He did not like the idea, either, of depending upon mere accidents. They were too purposeless. He would just set his will or willingness rather in the way of opportunity - and wait. "Boo-hoo-hoo! Boo-woo-woo!" "Where was that now? Birds is kinder ven triloquists often. Why, it's over in the prairie paster there. George! it's been er long time since I heard that ser close. Never could see 'em at it. What does it mean, anyway? Won der just where it is. There! Look at that un flyin' to that spot- and another'n. It's close by the deep draw there." With back bent he crept down the deep "wash-out" that ran out of the field into "the forty," and when he looked up at the assembly of the prairie grouses-not twenty yards away he began to mutter: "Whatter they doin', anyway? Is it er meetin' er a dance? Looks like both! That old feller bowin' low and throwin' his coat-tails high looks like he's preachin'. That other's shoutin', I reckon - and some's sayin' 'amen,' I guess, like ther Methodis'. Then there's ther air and alto of the sisters in that cacklin' and ther deep bass of the No! that's not religious, surely! Fightin', as I'm a sinner, and showin' off and fightin' ag'in. See them women - hens, I mean-just cacklin' a little on the outer edge and scarcely lookin' at ther ring. And look at that now! that slick young rooster just a-walkin' off with the prettiest pullets while the struttin' and scratchin' is goin' on in camp." He rose up coughed, and the assembly was dispersed. "Queer things is prairie chickens," said the |
